Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament (MP), Betty Nambooze, has threatened to mobilize her constituents to block the Kampala-Jinja Highway in Mukono over the state of the road.
According to Nambooze, over Ugx 200 billion has been spent on the rehabilitation of the road from the 2021/2022 financial year to date, and despite the work done on it, the road is still very narrow, yet it is the country’s major gateway for all imports and exports with heavy trucks.
While talking to journalists in Mukono on April 16, 2024, Nambooze stated that the whole stretch of the road is supposed to be 72 kilometers from Nakawa to Jinja and that the initial plan was to widen the Kampala-Jinja highway, get rid of the junctions, and give it another layer, but this has not been done, hence the huge traffic of motor vehicles both on the main road and access roads.
’’The populace in my district is facing a big problem and can no longer move from Mukono to Kampala to work to and from due to the traffic jam, which has prompted people to stop sleeping in their homes in Mukono, and families are separating because now, most partners have to sleep in the city to avoid the to and from everyday jam. So, they come back during weekends,’’ Nambooze noted.
She added that the landlords are losing out on business too because people are no longer sleeping in their Mukono houses but are instead sleeping in Kampala due to the jam, hence disorganizing many relationships and families.
Nambooze tasked UNRA to explain why the contractor who is doing the maintenance work on the highway has failed to work on it as per the required standards.
